Making An Example of Two
Naughty Boys

Artist: Frank Bellew

artoonist
Frank Bellew uses a schoolroom analogy to depict corrupt judges associated
with Tammany Hall's Tweed Ring as misbehaving boys undergoing punishment. George Barnard (right) and Albert
Cardozo (left) of the New York Supreme Court stand on the judicial
bench, while John McCunn of the Superior Court sits on its end (left).

George G. Barnard was one of the
key figures in the rise and fall of the notorious Tweed Ring. Born
into a wealthy New York family, the flamboyant Barnard spent his youth
prospecting gold in California, shilling for a gambling house (i.e.,
posing as a customer to attract real customers), and performing with a
minstrel troupe. In the late 1850s, he returned to New York City to
practice law, and soon decided to seek election as city recorder (a judicial
position) in 1858. William Tweed ensured Barnard's nomination by
the Democratic party when, as presiding officer, the Tammany boss
dispensed with the roll call, which Barnard was losing, and declared his
candidate the winner by acclamation.

In 1860, after a brief tenure as
recorder, Barnard was named, at Tweed's instigation, to the New York
Supreme Court (an appellate court) where he provided the Tweed Ring with
beneficial service. While Barnard may have had a competent legal
mind, he preferred "low women, late hours, and
hard liquor." In his courtroom, he made a mockery of decorum
and justice. Judge Barnard sat with his feet on the bench,
whittled pine sticks, drank from a brandy bottle, and cracked bawdy
jokes, while ruling invariably in favor of Tammany Hall interests.
One
of his first acts as a Supreme Court judge was to certify Boss Tweed,
who had no legal training, as a lawyer.

Judge
Albert Cardozo was from an immigrant Portuguese family that had settled
in New York City. Unlike Barnard, Cardozo was polite, scholarly, and
hardworking. Both men, however, were ambitious and beholden to
Boss Tweed. An honors graduate from Columbia, Cardozo had been
named to New York City's Court of Common Pleas by Mayor Fernando Wood
before Tweed secured his appointment to the New York Supreme
Court. The third Tammany judge in the cartoon is John McCunn, from
a poor Irish immigrant family, who labored as a dockworker before
becoming a lawyer.

Tammany judges aided the Tweed Ring by pardoning or releasing
prisoners who worked for the Democratic political machine, and by
appointing court officers and commissioners amenable to its will.
Besides providing protective legal cover, the Tammany judges were
instrumental in sustaining the Tweed Ring's political power by granting
citizenship to large numbers of immigrants who padded the machine's
voter rolls. In the election year of 1866, for example, Cardozo
naturalized up to 800 people a day, McCunn naturalized over 2000 on one
day alone, and Barnard worked most of October from 6 p.m. to midnight
rapidly initialing unread naturalization papers that created over 10,000
new citizens.

When Jay Gould tried to prevent Cornelius Vanderbilt from taking over
the Erie Railroad in 1867-1868, Judge Barnard followed Boss Tweed's
lead. The judge initially issued an arrest warrant for Gould and
his associates (which they evaded). After the financier bribed
Tweed to switch from Vanderbilt's to his side, Barnard began ruling in
Gould's favor. In 1869, at Tweed's request, Judge Cardozo pardoned
Gould's considerable debts that he had accumulated in his nearly
successful attempt to corner the gold market.

Thomas
Nast had been assailing the Tweed Ring for years through his creative
and powerful cartoons, provoking the Boss to grumble about “them damn
pictures!”Finally, in
July 1871, The New York Times began publishing a series of
reports based on inside information that revealed the rampant corruption
of the Tweed Ring. Other publications joined the attack, and Nast
turned up the heat to inflame public opinion against the Tweed Ring.
By the fall, opposition to Tweed and his cohorts from politicians, the
press, and public had reached formidable dimensions.

The Ring,
though, might have weathered the storm had not Judge
Barnard turned against his political mentor and poker-playing chum,
Boss Tweed. The Committee of Seventy, an anti-Tammany reform
group, initiated a lawsuit against the city, and the case fell within
Barnard's jurisdiction. Uncharacteristically, he listened
attentively to the lawyers' arguments, then stunned nearly everyone
by issuing orders that opened the books of the city treasury, set aside a grant to a city utility, and
placed an injunction
on city contracts.

Judge Barnard may simply have calculated that it
was time to jump ship, but there was speculation that Samuel Tilden, the
leader of the state Democratic committee who led the anti-Tweed forces
after Barnard’s rulings, had offered him the Democratic nomination for
governor. Whatever the reason, Barnard's decisions opened
the way for effective prosecution of the Tweed Ring, but did not enhance
his own career. In April 1872 (shortly before this cartoon
appeared), the New York State Assembly voted to impeach Barnard,
Cardozo, and McCunn on various charges of corruption, most stemming from
their association with the Tweed Ring. Cardozo resigned before his
trial began in the State Senate, but Barnard and McCunn were found
guilty and removed from office. None of the three Tammany judges
were prosecuted on criminal charges. Cardozo's son, Benjamin,
later redeemed the family's good name by becoming a well-respected
jurist and an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court
(1932-1938).